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God's Promises and Our Integrity

Abram is a man who is walking with God. His misadventure in Egypt is behind him now, and he is back at the place of blessing, actually walking with the Lord by faith. This is seen in the fact that when a dispute arose between himself and his nephew Lot, Abram willingly took the second place. He placed the needs of Lot ahead of his own and just left himself in the care of God. He said, in effect, "God, you've got to have this. I'm going to just trust you." And that is how you know you're growing as you should, when you can willingly turn loose of your rights and privileges for the good of others. You're on your way.

After the incident with Lot, Abram is left alone with his wife, his servants, and his possessions. It must have been difficult for him to see his own flesh and blood separate from him under such harsh conditions, this is his nephew, and the boy is fatherless. Yet for Abraham, this difficult time would turn into grace and blessing, because it is at this very time that the Lord chose to renew his promises to Abram. And while these are Abram's promises, there are spiritual applications we can definitely benefit from, if we have eyes to see, and if we pay attention.

Abram Was a Man of Promise

Genesis 13:14-16 says this:

"The Lord said to Abram after Lot had separated from him, 'Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward. For all the land that you see, I will give to you and your offspring forever. I will make your offspring as the dust of the earth, so that if one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted.'"

Notice the confirmation of God's word in his heart, in his life. Think about it. When you look at the events of verses 7 through 11, you may believe Abram got the short end of the stick. But verses 10 and 14 tell us that both Lot and Abram lifted up their eyes, they saw with understanding, but their understanding was vastly different from each other. Lot, in 2 Peter, is called a righteous man as he dealt with Sodom. But in this moment, he became worldly. Lot looked with a heart driven by profit and ease. Abram looked with a heart driven by a sacrificial love of unity. Lot looked through eyes connected to a worldly system of self-sufficiency. Abram looked through eyes connected to a committed spiritual heart.

Now Abram didn't walk around with a committed spiritual heart all the time, he went back to Egypt, and in the near future he's going to make two or three more major blunders. But right now, he's wanting to have a committed spiritual heart. Lot may have taken the best of the land, but Abram was about to get all of the land. He's going to get it all.

Listen, those who walk with their faith in God and their heart centered on his will never fear they will lose anything. Sure, we struggle. We get worked up from time to time. But at the end of the day, when you're soundly saved, the peace of God comes, and you don't have a fear that you're going to lose anything. God honors the faith from his people, because the faith of his people is what honors him. The Bible says straight up, if you don't have faith, you can't please the Lord. Faith is what pleases the Lord.

God's promise to Abram was full of blessings. Let's look at what the promise communicated in verses 13-16. We see three things: the promise of land, the promise of legacy, and the promise of duration.

The Promise of Land

Lot chose the best, but Abraham got the rest. He got it all. The land was the prize for his faith. So what about us? The promised land for us is heaven itself. Read Revelation 21 and 22 sometime, just sit down and read both those chapters thinking about the promise God's given you concerning land. But here's a quick one, John 14:1-3:

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also."

Don't miss that line. Jesus says, "Where I am, as your King, as your Savior, as the One who took your wrath upon Himself, where I am, you will be also." If you could go to a land of paradise where all your family and friends are there, where you'll never be hungry, never grow weary, never shed a tear again, but Jesus isn't there, do you still want to go? If your answer is yes, which it is sometimes in our flesh nature, then you have an issue with your Christianity, because it's always about Jesus. He goes and prepares a place for us. Abram's promise is our promise through the Lord Jesus Christ, and that place is heaven. We worship the glorified, risen Savior we read about in Revelation chapter 1, with eyes like flame of fire, and when we glimpse Him, we fall as if we're dead. That's the power of the Jesus that saved us, the one we want to serve and have faith in.

The Promise of Legacy

Look at verse 16. Now we see his promised legacy. God's promise is to enhance and further the promises He made earlier, talking about a multitude of offspring for Abram. Think about this: the lack of children would have been a sore spot for Abram. To the people of that era, many children were an indication of the blessing of the Lord, and Abraham didn't have any. Psalm 127:3,5 says this:

"Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one's youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them. He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies at the gate."

Even Abram's own name was a mockery to him, Abram means "exalted father." And that's what he's walking around with, with the promises of God, and yet there is no heir, and his one favorite nephew he just had to separate from. So God's promise now to Abraham is that he will have a legacy and children, so many will descend from him that their number will be beyond comprehension. And guess what, that has come to pass. We get to look back to ancient times and see it. Abraham didn't see it. He had to try to walk by faith. And as we'll see in the coming weeks, he wobbled, as many of us do.

God wants the same for us. He wants us to multiply our faith and use us to reach others for his glory. We too can leave a spiritual legacy behind for the glory of the Lord. Daniel 12:3 says this:

"And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever."

I want this for you. Whatever God calls you to do, in your calling, in your world, where you are at, shine for Jesus. Make his name great, because he saved you while you were still a sinner. You've got nothing else. If we're all standing in front of Jesus in fifteen minutes, have a legacy of sharing the gospel. And for some, it's as easy as inviting someone to church. The best witness of Jesus's power in the Bible, in my opinion, is in John chapter 9, when the blind man gives this testimony: I don't know, once I was blind, and now I'm not. Once I was doomed, and now I have new life in Christ.

We don't play this game for the results. God could turn it all off on us tomorrow. We play to please him, because we've got nothing, but when we have him, we have everything. There's no sidebar agenda. We want to protect the faith, advance the gospel, have unity, and make his name great. That's it.

The Promise of Duration

So let's go on to the second half of verse 15. You see the promise of duration. God's promise to Abram is one that will never be repealed, ever. There are no strings attached. God is not going to do this thing for any other reason than his own reasons. God is revealing himself through creation, through his chosen people, through the Gentiles being grafted in. It's always, always, always about God and his reasons. It's an eternal promise. The land they are fighting for over in Israel today in the Middle East belongs to Abraham's descendants.

Now, I want you to notice that we who are redeemed also get to be partakers of the eternal promise. Our salvation, our heavenly home, our Father's love are just a few of the many eternal promises that belong to those who are saved by the grace of God.

Now listen. I want you to see something, and once you see this, you can't unsee it. I want you to see when the promise came back to Abraham, when it was reinstated, when it was exalted, when it was made even bigger and God doubled down on Abraham. It came to Abram after he separated from Lot. If Lot, as some say, represents worldliness and a lack of commitment to the things of God, then it stands to reason that when that distraction was removed, Abram heard from the Lord. Separation from people, institutions, and the like is never easy. However, if we expect the Lord to bless us at the level he can bless us, we are going to have to separate from anyone or anything that hinders our being right with him. That can be hard. For some of us it means separating from a habit or a behavior. I don't know what it is for you, and I'm not going to tell you what it is for me, but it's there for all of us, there is something we have to be separate from in some area of our life.

Here's the Scripture to back this up, 2 Corinthians 6:14 through the start of chapter 7, verse 1:

"Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? Or what accord has Christ with Satan? Or what portion does a believer share with an unbeliever? What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God, as God said, 'I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.' Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord, and touch no unclean thing; and I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you, and you shall be my sons and daughters to me, says the Lord Almighty. Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God."

God does bless a separated life. And did you notice this promise merely amplifies promises that have already been given to Abraham earlier? Genesis 12:2-7 are the first of the promises concerning the seed and the land. Now those promises are amplified, expounded, enlarged. This is how the Lord works with his people. The work of faith is an ongoing revelation. The walk of faith in your life is always an ongoing deal. There is no touchdown. There's no goal line. You just get first downs, and hopefully you get a first down after you've been sacked for an eight-yard loss.

Those of you who want to walk by faith, this is how the Lord works, line upon line, precept upon precept. Isaiah 28:10 says this:

"For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little, there a little."

That is how the word of God works in the life of the believer. That is why keeping in the Scriptures daily, keeping your prayer life daily, matters. Psalm 119:105 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path." We all want to know upfront. We all want the whole deal today. But God reveals himself as we are ready to receive him. John 16:12 says this:

"I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now."

God will reveal truth to you if you have ears to hear and you are ready to receive that truth.

A Command to Walk

Going on with our text, look at verse 17, another command to Abram, God's faith walker. Genesis 13:17 says, "Arise, walk through the length and the breadth of the land, for I will give it to you." After the promise has been given, the call to obedience is issued. It's always the way it works with the Lord. His promises are nearly always coupled with his commands. You want to claim his promises? He's going to give you some commands. That's what's good and right. If we want his best, then we should be willing to follow him, not put our own best plans together and ask him to bless it. Those are two different things.

Abram is being called to get up and go with God. He is being challenged to deepen his walk with the Lord. As this concerns us, God is looking for people who will simply walk with him. He always has. Micah 6:8 says this:

"He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God."

Sadly, many proclaimed believers are just sitting around and not walking with him by faith. And if that's you, there's a word for you in Romans 13:11-12:

"Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light."

Abram is commanded to get up and walk up and down all over the land he has been given, to try to see it all. My takeaway from that for our time is this: as believers, we need to take some time and review all that we have in Christ Jesus. Do you stop and think about it daily, weekly, monthly? Ephesians chapter 3, Philippians chapter 3, Ephesians chapter 1, to name a few, all of what you have in Christ Jesus. That, my friends, is a tall order, but one worthy of your time.

There's no question that there are believers who are less than they could be simply because they do not know who they are and what they have in Jesus Christ. As Abram journeyed, he was to live as though he carried the title deed to the land in his hand, even though at that moment it belonged to somebody else. Abram was to accept by faith that all of this land was his land. So it is with our spiritual journey, we have much in Jesus, but we have to hold it by faith.

What are you in your relationship with God doing? Are you as close as you should be? Are you growing each day in the things of the Lord? When he speaks, do you actually move? Those are hard questions to face, but they reveal a lot about the condition of our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. And so, when we determine like Abram, our life will be characterized, not by all of the stumbling and bumbling that we do, because that's there too, but our life overall will be characterized by our obedience, by our altars, by the voice of God through the sufficient Scriptures, and by walking out our faith. And the one thing that God will increase in you, if you commit to that, is something we really need in our world: integrity.

Abram Was a Man of Integrity

There's a word in the English language called integrity, and we rarely see it completely modeled in our day. We've gotten to a famine point of integrity, where the only thing wrong with doing something dishonest is if you get caught. The word integrity actually means possession of firm principles, the quality of possessing and steadfastly adhering to high moral principles or professional standards. When a person is said to have integrity, what we mean is they have high standards, high moral standards. They operate in a way that causes them to seek the right way first. Does everybody always, 100%, walk in integrity? No, they don't. Nobody does. You don't. I don't. But some of us, because of our new life in Christ, have a bent toward integrity. This is the behavior God would have all of his children exhibit. It's one of the greatest things that can be said about your life, that you are a person of integrity.

Genesis 14 is a glimpse inside the life of integrity of this man Abram, who is giving us our example for the faith walk. Genesis 14 tells the story of a regional war between several kings in the area of Mesopotamia and a coalition of five cities in the Jordan Valley, including Sodom and Gomorrah. The cities rebelled, prompting a military campaign against them, and the invading kings defeated numerous peoples along their route and ultimately overcame the armies of Sodom and Gomorrah. During the battle, many fled, and the victors carried away great amounts of plunder, including Lot, the nephew of Abraham, along with his family and possessions, because he was living near Sodom.

Abram learned that Lot had been captured, so he gathered 318 trained men from his household and pursued the invading force northward. Using a surprised nighttime attack, Abram defeated them, rescued Lot and the other captives, and recovered all the stolen goods.

As Abram returns, he is met by the king of Sodom and by Melchizedek, king of Salem and a priest of the most high God. These two interactions are key for us. When the king of Sodom offered Abraham the recovered wealth, Abram refused to keep it, declaring that he did not want anyone to say that the king of Sodom had made him rich. He accepted only what his men had already consumed and allowed his allies to take their rightful share. The differences between his interaction with the king of Sodom and the king of Salem are stark and clear, and they're great lessons about serving the spirit life rather than the flesh life.

There are three issues dealt with in this passage, and each demonstrates that Abram was a man of integrity: integrity in warfare, integrity in worship, and integrity in wealth.

Integrity in Warfare

Sodom had evidently been subject to King Chedorlaomer for some twelve years. After twelve years, they refused to pay their tribute money and revolted. Chedorlaomer, along with his confederates, invaded Canaan to deal with these rebellious people. This invasion resulted in the sacking of Sodom and the capturing of Lot, along with all his possessions. There is always some evil like Chedorlaomer who wants to put you in bondage spiritually or otherwise. And if you leave the things of the Lord, if you depart from the things of the Lord like Lot did and walk off into the world, the chances of you forming some evil habits, or finding yourself in hardship, are very possible.

Think about the spiritual implications of Abram hearing that Lot was in trouble. He went to war. Abram was a man of peace, this is the only time we see him war in his entire life. There was a need, and Abram was willing to throw down. Ephesians 6:10-18 tells us to put on the full armor of God and stand firm. We give the victories over to Jesus. We don't fight against flesh and blood; we fight against the principalities of this world with the full armor of God. But when you're called to fight, you're called to fight. Our successes in the spiritual battles of life hinge on how well we prepare ourselves for the battles we're going to face, not if we face them, but when. There's a war going on around us all the time. There are times when we need to be intentional, a time to stand against evil, a time to defend or rescue a brother, a time to stand in the gap for another, and then let us fight the good fight.

2 Timothy 4:7 says this:

"I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."

Can you say that? There's no greater line than this for a believer who is actually on the field.

Integrity in Worship

Then we see Abraham's integrity in his worship. Abram had faith to make war, and he encountered a facilitator to help him in the worship of the Lord. There are some truths worth noticing about this mysterious man named Melchizedek. He is called a king, a ruler, a man of great influence, wealth, and power. He is the king of Salem, and the word Salem here means "peace." It is an ancient name for the city of Jerusalem. His name means "king of righteousness." When he comes, he brings bread and wine, both products of the area, given to our weary patriarch to help him after he does war. He is also a high priest of God. Abram wasn't the only man around who knew who the Lord was. Melchizedek prays for Abram and pronounces a blessing on his life.

This mysterious man is one of the earliest and clearest pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ in the Bible. The most popular ideas concerning his identity are that he was Job, or that he was Enoch returned to earth, or that he was an angel, or even that he was Jesus himself. But we know he's not an angel; he's called a man in Hebrews 7:4. And he's not Jesus, based on Hebrews 7:3 and 15, if you really push to understand the text. Most likely, Melchizedek was just a godly man who knew the true and living God. He was a man; born and died like a man, and the Old Testament is silent concerning the details of his life. Perhaps so that he can be seen more clearly as a type of Jesus Christ.

Notice the picture he paints of Jesus: an eternal priest, no beginning or end, presenting bread and wine, picturing the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, who said that the bread represented his broken body and the wine his shed blood. Melchizedek was a king; Jesus is a king. He was a priest; Jesus is a priest. He was named king of righteousness; Jesus is absolutely righteous. He was king of peace; Jesus is the Prince of Peace. He was blessed for his faithfulness to the Lord. Notice the phrase "Abram of the most high God" in chapter 14, Abram is known for his relationship to the Lord, and he's blessed as a result.

There is no greater commentary on your life or mine than when someone says, "Yeah, they're a Christian." When we give our lives to him in obedience and worship, he is honored, we are blessed, and the world is given his light, even if they reject it. Knowing that you are a Christian, and letting the world know you are a Christian, is a very big deal. Jesus says, "You deny me before man, I'll deny you in front of the Father." That would be the worst thing ever. Such is the fruit of the life of a consistent, obedient, worshipful soul before the Lord.

Integrity in Wealth

Lastly, let's look at Abraham's integrity with wealth. When Abram won this great military victory, he took possession of all the spoils of the defeated cities, this would have represented a tremendous amount of wealth. So observe how Abram deals with the money. Look at chapter 14, verse 21. The king of Sodom offers to allow Abram to keep all the goods he had won. It must have been a great temptation. As humans, we are more tempted in the area of money than we are in most other areas. We all search for ways to be sure that we come out on top when all the coins are counted.

Abram's response is classic. He refuses to take a dime from the king of Sodom. He would rather trust the Lord to take care of him than to feel like he owed any man anything. He did not want this wicked king to get his hooks into him. If we will exercise integrity in our handling of our resources, we can rest assured the Lord will look after the needs we may have in this life.

These areas of life, warfare, worship, and wealth, are very, very important. And if you're convicted right now and feeling bad about it, you're in good company. All of us feel bad, because this is the truth about us all, which is why, daily, in keeping with repentance, we serve the Lord. Yes, we're saints headed for a victorious promised land in heaven. But right now, we need Jesus every day, to put his will in our hearts to exercise integrity in handling everything we possibly can. And when we fail, we apologize, we repent, and we go on.

May we be able to say, with a clear heart, that we are walking in integrity before the Lord, in our warfare, in our worship, and in our wealth, and may we together shine a light that only he can reflect, only he can share.